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Recently, My Spilt Milk photographer Steph Catsoulis has been busy, shooting CHVRCHES last week at the Joy Theater and Lily Allen this week at the House of Blues. Here are her shots and her notes. (Click on the photos to see them in a viewer.)

Catsoulis first saw CHVRCHES at Lollapalooza this year and wanted to see how the band translated to a concert venue.

Dead and Company were scheduled to play The Smoothie King Center last December, but the band postponed the show because guitarist John Mayer--the Jerry Garcia sub in this configuration--had to have an emergency appendectomy. Saturday night, they made up the show and revisited The Grateful Dead catalogue for hours, but there was no mention of Mayer's illness.

Last Friday night, Sleigh Bells played Republic, and according to photographer Steph Catsoulis, the years in service and size of the room haven’t quieted the band at all. Five albums into its exploration of the place where heavy metal guitar, hip-hop drums, and high school cheers meet, Sleigh Bells stays true to its core values in concert, which translated to a very loud show.

It’s hard to imagine that Jack White will be able to lock up people’s phones when he plays Jazz Fest Sunday, May 6, but that is the plan for the tour behind his upcoming Boarding House Reach album. Yesterday, he announced that “no photos, video or audio recording devices” will be allowed at his concerts. He’s not worried about bootlegging, though.

The jam band wave that first hit Jazz Fest when Phish first performed 1996 and resurged yearly since owes everything to The Grateful Dead. The Dead provided the blueprint for protracted musical explorations launched by classic American roots music, and while subsequent bands added their own twists--many of them funky--they're doing a thing The Dead did first.

Last week, the country-tinted harmony group The Wild Reeds played Gasa Gasa with Blank Range and The Lostines opening. Photographer Steph Catsoulis was there, and here are her shots and her notes. Click on the photos to see them in a viewer.

Last Thursday night, Toronto’s Austra played Gasa Gasa in support of the band’s new album, Future Politics. Our new photographer Steph Catsoulis was there, and she says the album’s electronic chill doesn’t do justice to the band’s live sound.

The Cajun musician and activist suffered a mild stroke in October 2010, and because of it he was paralyzed on his left side. A month before the stroke, he’d gone in for a physical and the doctor congratulated him on starting his 60s in such good shape, but it happened anyway.